Operation Gondola

This was the British first all-out air operation since October 1942 by Air Vice Marshal G. R. Bromet’s No. 19 Group of Air Marshal Sir John Slessor’s RAF Coastal Command against U-boats transiting the Bay of Biscay between their bases on the western coast of German-occupied France and their operational areas in the Atlantic (4/16 February 1943).

In ‘Gondola’ there were 312 sorties, 19 sightings and eight attacks in which, however, only limited damage was inflicted. In the first experimental deployment of a Wellington with ASV.Mk IV radar and a Leigh Light, Oberleutnant Ernst Heydemann’s U-268 was sunk on 19 February by an aeroplane of No. 172 Squadron. U-211, U-508 and U-525 were damaged on 20 February, 26 February and 3 March respectively, the last shooting down its Wellington attacker of No. 172 Squadron. U-519 was also sunk by a Liberator of the USAAF, but a major tactical reserve was that one boat had reported that it had been attacked by an aeroplane whose radar emissions had not been detected by the German Metox radar receiver. The Germans now knew that the Allies were fielding a new type of radar and set about discovering its features and therefore how to defeat it.